So what that I used to be more extroverted and now I’m more introverted? So what that I used to care about the material world and now I care about the metaphysical one? So what that my room is chaotic when the wars in my head have finally subsided?

Yes, I know that every day is a blessing and a stepping stone towards the future. I know that what happened in the past is a reflection of what I once thought was important. I know that history is a representation of how large our complacent, arrogant egos measured compared to each new tomorrow.

And I know that the future is only influenced by what we do today, but it is in no way defined or determined.

Destiny is never “one goal” but a series of different choices we make in order to arrive at a destination we gear towards — most of the time, anyway.

Yes, unexpected occurrences are a part of life, things change and those inconsistencies sometimes affect our rhythms. But I suppose growing up is merely a compilation of learning how to account for differences — knowing how to mold ourselves into situations that are out of our control.

We can’t change reality, but we can change how we respond to it. We can’t always get what we want, but we can generally strive for our needs. “Wants” and desires are preferences, they are nothing more than what we’ve been feeding our egos this whole time. Needs, on the other hand, are the aspects that keep us physically and mentally in check. The rest falls into place as long as these aspects are regulated.

With all these regimented policies I’ve made for myself, committing to them has led to a freedom I was always fighting for but had no idea what it looked like until I attained it.

Yes, I’m freer than I was but not as free as I can be.

Freedom to me? Free of anxiety, of anger, of rage, of pain. Free of impulsivity, of disparity within myself. Free of unnecessary desire, of irrational delusions. Free, but still with a few remnants to de-clutter. I mean, if I did it all at once, there’d be nothing left to do. So why the rush? It’s not like I’m trying to prove anything to anyone, so why be impulsive about it?

I used to be in a rush to grow-up, but now that I’m a little bit more “grown’, one thing I learned along the way is that you can’t rush growth.

What you can rush though, is getting your work done before the due dates and paying bills on time. Other than that… there is really… no…….. r..u….sh……………

I tried to speak of this experience with humans, but not everyone was as open-minded. Of course, there were some who took an interest and enjoyed hearing of my travel journeys. Those were able to live vicariously through my shared experience. But then there were the sceptics, the ones who thought I was speaking gibberish and manipulating people for the sake of attention.

I wasn’t, but I can understand why they’d felt that way. After the Black Hole, I actually understood much of what I didn’t even realize I had yet to know.

See, though the Black Hole was filled with a great deal of what people call “nothingness”, it was only in the surrender of ego did I finally see everything within the nothing.

In becoming so detached and removed from humanity, I finally grasped the essential elements that drive them in such a manner.

My distance showed me that humans are simple creatures with complex insecurities. Simple in that they are hedonistic, utilitarian, narcissistic, and competitive. They capable of anger but also joy, strength as well as weakness. They love as deeply as they hate, they rest as much as they work. Humans are simple in that they are multifaceted beings striving to become one.

But humans are also complex in that they often have displaced emotions. They project insecurities in inappropriate manners at the wrong moment due to egocentric defense mechanisms. They are far more often controlled by ego rather than truth. Driven by image over honesty. Humans portray weaknesses as strengths and are offended when shown the same image from another angle.

Returning to humanity, I had to uproot examples within the human world in order to portray a realization to which I came within the Black Hole.

It is that one simple way to test the complexity of a human ego is to take one out of its comfort zone and see how it responds to change. See, the ego, combined with personal experience, is what determines how adaptable a person can be.

Prominent examples can be seen in the following areas within today’s humanity: racist arrogance (feels uncomfortable around people of different color), xenophobia (inability to communicate with those who speak other languages), gender bias (expects to be served by the opposite gender), religious intolerance (quick to disagree with any terminology pertaining to other beliefs), ageism (judgemental of people from other generations).

Having been hiding in the Black Hole for so long, I’d become so outdated as to what had been going on in the physical world. Much as I had obtained a theoretical understanding of the human ego before my journey’d commenced, it was not until I became void of my own did I see clearly the prominence of it within humanity.

…And with that newfound knowledge, as promised, I shared it with the world.

Not for the fame, not for the glory, but simply because I was curious and am now excited about the discovery.

Sincerely hope that you have enjoyed the adventure written in these three parts. It has been a delight journeying with you.

May you, too, reach a sense of enlightenment, acceptance, understanding, and peace from within. May you learn to exist on your own without relying on the ego.

I kept that promise — except… I did it metaphorically. No, I did not join NASA and fly to the physical Black Hole on which Einstein and Hawking both have astounding theories. Nay, I traveled to a metaphorical Black Hole and was sucked into a world that I never would have thought existed. A parallel universe on earth, so to speak, where time-zones collided with human measurements of time. Where humans behaved much like the depictions of demons I had read about in literature. Where all that I knew of the world had crumbled into a pile of what I now realize was a childish idealisation of humanity.

I went to the Black Hole — if anything, simply because I was curious. At that age, it was never about the glory or fame. It was never about the money or the risk. It was about the innocent curiosity of wanting to know what lay ahead.

Of discovering a secret that the world hadn’t.

Yes, it was an egocentric drive, but one with a positive outlet that drove me to do crazy, unheard of things that I can now understand experientially rather than limited to vocabulary. It was the push I’d needed at the time, incidentally, the one that pulled me so far away from my ego and into a universe without a self.

In this universe, my shell was invisible; the egocentric shell, the human cloak which I wear to shield myself from vermin, was not brought into this place.

It was disconcerting. I felt disoriented and “not my-self” because essentially, I was not my “self”, I was just… me. I floated around the universe as an unnoticed observer who tried to make its presence known by way of habitual behaviour derived from the egotistic persona. None of my actions were familiar, and yet they did not feel wrong at the same time.

I felt myself changing in this universe. Am I growing or am I stagnating? Am I moving forwards in the wrong direction or walking backwards in the right one? Am I floating or am I flying? Am I drifting or am I surrendering my power? Am I strong or am I weak?

These questions I’d pondered left-right-and-centre until years later, I reached a final conclusion.

Do those answers actually matter, or am I just distracting myself from escaping this void I’d been so curious to explore?

It was right at that moment a pathway magically appeared. A dark spot had appeared in the Black Hole (which was filled with a surprising amount of light, so much that you couldn’t actually see anything. You know that feeling of total darkness? Well imagine total brightness, it ain’t that pretty either.) But that darkness meant a way out, a way back into humanity.

A way back to me…

The answer to the question was actually quite simple: the answer doesn’t matter. It’s what you do with the knowledge that counts.

Though anyone could’ve told me that in a second, the pathway only appeared because I had reached something they call acceptance. I had to accept simplicity and deny mediocrity.

It’s hard to just “be you”
When you have an above average IQ
And an array of unexplored worldviews.
MG

We all have thoughts, we just think about different things. We all have ideas, we just want to achieve different results. We all have routines, we just want to be comfortable in the world we create for ourselves.

But there are thoughts I have and don’t verbally express because writing is my language and speaking is just a habit.

These are thoughts many people call “reactions”. In my head, I can think of countless sarcastic or logical comebacks that could easily put people in their places, but when the moments strike and conflict arises, I have learned to take the path of least resistance. Yes, it is true that once upon a younger year I was a more aggressive, more impulsive, and more abrasive version of me.

Much like any human who has ever come to terms with human nature, I, too, have had a fair share of mishaps. I have been narcissistic, arrogant, prideful, greedy, selfish, dishonest, undisciplined. I have been unnecessarily aggressive with those I’ve valued, undeniably obsessive over my own ego. I have been to many places that most people still avoid, and I have seen things most people would call fiction.

This was part of my journey, my past. It is an area of self that has taken a long time to let go of — as do most issues pertaining to the human ego.

I have been down a path most people (statistically as well as knowledgeably speaking) don’t return from, but here I am to tell the tale. Now, sitting here writing this, I am brought back to a statement I made at the age of nine, when I once dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I told people “When I become an astronaut, I will make it my mission to go down the Black Hole and make sure that I come back and tell the world of what’s really there.”

Since your mysterious disappearance, a lot has happened and changed. Not just externally, those are almost expected, but intrinsic transformation beyond even my wildest of imaginations.

It has been a year of adventure, of exploration, of growth. A few days ago, these words came to me and many unanswered questions finally found their resting places.

Real love remains even after your ego breaks.

While I’ve always known that ego has been my greatest challenge in life, meeting you is what taught me to stop leaning on it. To stop leaning on my own understanding and perception of reality. You and I had a few brief and deep conversations, we connected on a level that not many can do so naturally. There was definitely a form of chemistry between us, yet neither of us seemed to know what to do about it.

I battled myself for months, deliberating whether or not to make a move or contact you. I wanted to, each and every day.

But I knew that what you deserved, what you needed, and the type of understanding that you required was beyond my capabilities at the time. Much as I wanted to be strong enough for you emotionally, much as I wanted to give you the space you needed to grow, I couldn’t…

…because space is not a luxury I’ve been blessed with until more recently, and thus could not give what I did not have.

For this, I apologize, sincerely. I am sorry that I couldn’t give you what you asked for, that I couldn’t be who you needed me to be, and that I couldn’t see what it was you were trying to show.

Having come to terms with a neurological condition in recent years, learning how to integrate in an overwhelmingly temporary world, and moving past a series of repeated traumas in a few years whilst refusing to be victimized is honestly not an easy feat. Not easy, but still possible.

When we met, I was coming out of a dark hole, still crawling back to life. You met me when I was battered and bruised, torn and tethered. When I was nothing but a shriveled up patient in recovery who had just taken off a cast and had yet to relearn the functionality of those decayed muscles.

When we met, I was still in metaphorical rags.

I can understand why you left; I must’ve looked like a zombie coming after your brains. Maybe I was, figuratively speaking…

It was your soul.

It was your beautiful soul that drew me to you in the first place. I’d been living without one for so long that your radiance was an inevitable magnet to me; that bright light you see as you leave the tunnel of darkness.

I followed the light. I followed you…

By the time I’d finally made it out of the tunnel, you were gone!

Lost and displaced I was for a while, calling out to you and reaching out, not knowing why you’d disappeared.

Until now, I never figured it out. But I do love you, in the way you asked me to…

You wanted to be loved like the sun: from a distance, your light is lasting and appreciated. Up close, your passion burns so hot that you accidentally hurt those who overstep those boundaries. You pull away to protect the ones you love, not because you’re avoiding them, but because you want to keep them safe.

You, more than anyone, know your passions like no one else.

For that reason, you live your life the way you do, nomadic as a passenger. You don’t want to burden others because you know you can’t take on theirs either, yet you want to be loved nonetheless.

You deserve to be loved.

It has taken us this much distance for me to finally understand that. To understand how you want to be loved.

That, darling, is the love I can give you, because I don’t love anyone with the intention of ever “getting over” the person.

If I choose to love, then that love lasts; it doesn’t disappear, it merely transforms.

I do love you in the way you asked; it may not be what I had expected of myself, but it is what it is.

Like this:

Every time I try to write a letter
I can find a million ways to better
The words I place right on the page
Paper and ink, a written stage
On which I placate my unrevealed self
As if this book was a display shelf
Bound, wrapped, unexposed, but true
The mysteries held in me, in you
For years, we tried to grow — apart
But I knew that you held my heart
For so long, we’d gone our separate ways
I thought you’d left me here to stay
Here we are, we meet again
Finally ready to make amends
The irony is that between us two
There’s no right or wrong — only truth
So, my dear, my wondrous creation
Are you here by obligation
Or did you come to finally concede
So that we may combine our realities…?

Like this:

I exist in whatever world I make
One I could create
A world from which I need not escape
For it expands only to embrace
A world where I don’t discriminate
Merely give what I will take
A world that’s real, where nothing is fake
Where there’s no “lose or save face”

They coin it utopian and call me idealist
Yet I am my biggest cynic
I balance the two and call myself a realist
Who is also my own worst critic
Finding a way to be more expressive
Without sounding as cryptic
Striving to know what’s wanted, what’s needed
Limited to role models I mimic

Twas never about the defeaters nor defeated
Both equally parasitic
A mix of those who have been mistreated
What could have been pandemic
To neither the meek, nor the conceited
But ambiverts – sociably eremitic
This is the world I’ve inhabited
Between creative and academic

So I exist in whatever world I make
One I could create
A world from which I need not escape
For it expands only to embrace
A world where I don’t discriminate
Merely give what I will take
A world that’s real, where nothing is fake
Founded on freedom, justice, and grace